Astor Place - Condo - East Village - by Gwathmey Siegel

[finnman69]

Goldberger takes on this garish monstrosity:


http://www.newyorker.com/critics/sky...02crsk_skyline

Goldberger cuts to the chase and DESTROYS this building. BRAVO! May favorite paragraphs



GREEN MONSTER
A startling addition to Astor Place.
by PAUL GOLDBERGER
Issue of 2005-05-02
Posted 2005-04-25


The first thing you think when you see the new luxury apartment building at Astor Place—a slick, undulating tower clad in sparkly green glass—is that it doesn’t belong in the neighborhood. The tone of Astor Place is set by places like Cooper Union, the Public Theatre, and the gargantuan former Wanamaker store on Broadway: heavy, brawny blocks of masonry that sit foursquare on the ground. Louis Sullivan once described one of Henry Hobson Richardson’s great stone buildings as a man with “virile force—broad, vigorous, and with a whelm of energy.” The new building, designed by Charles Gwathmey, is an elf prancing among men.

Of course, cities are often enriched by architecture that seems, at first, to be alien: the pristine glass towers of Mies van der Rohe and the sylphlike bridges of Santiago Calatrava have brought grace to countless harsh, older cityscapes. But this new building, which is on one of the most prominent sites in lower Manhattan, does not have a transforming effect. If, as Vincent Scully proposed, architecture is a conversation between generations, this young intruder hasn’t much to say to its neighbors. Its shape is fussy, and the glass façade is garishly reflective: Mies van der Rohe as filtered through Donald Trump. Instead of adding a lyrical counterpoint to Astor Place, the tower disrupts the neighborhood’s rhythm.

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Gwathmey responded to this opportunity with a piecemeal design: a four-layer cake. A chunky trapezoidal base is topped by a twenty-one-story section of curved glass; above this rests a boxy minitower, which is crowned by another curved section. For a while, the base of the building was surrounded by scaffolding on which was painted the words “sculpture for living—undulating, provocative, reflective, iconic, curvaceous,” which is surely a more sophisticated approach to marketing than “4 rms river vu,” even if it left you wondering whether it referred to a condominium or a stripper.

As the marketing campaign suggests, Gwathmey was less interested in fitting in than in stopping people in their tracks. He wanted to make freestanding sculpture. That, in itself, was a good idea, especially at a time when so many New York apartment buildings are knockoffs of prewar brick boxes, based on the idea that blending in is the greatest virtue. At least Gwathmey is above that. At one point, he told me that the building was inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s famous unbuilt designs for a curving glass skyscraper. Yet the architect didn’t follow Mies enough. He put Mies in the middle, but not at the bottom, where the squat limestone base tries too hard to fit into the surrounding streets, or at the top, with its crown of miniboxes.

Furthermore, the highly reflective glass the architect chose is inexplicable. It is the sort of pastel hue you would expect to see in a suburban office park. There’s no need for that today, when glass manufacturers are able to produce clear, almost colorless glass that is as energy-efficient as older, reflective varieties. The green glass contrasts baldly with the white limestone masonry, further fragmenting the façade and making the whole structure look like a catalogue of architectural parts.

[Alonzo-ny]

I agree this building is horrible. The shape is ungainly and the glass is horribly reflective

[antinimby]

I'll be glad to take it if nobody wants it. Now can I get the keys?

[NoyokA]

The thing I like least about this building is the square base. I think it would be better if its free-flowing form reached the street or somehow related to it or its base, perhaps merging with a square base, if a square base was so necessary. I dont think there was a lot of vision with this building, I think they thought it would be nice to have a square at the base, some waves, in the midsection, and finally some more squares and waves. Little thought was given to how each aspect would relate to the other, merely tack on some reflective glass and some other postmodernist tic tacs, and call it a day.

[lofter1]

The Cube, Restored, Is Back and Turning at Astor Place

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
November 19, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/nyregion/19cube.html


Last March, when the familiar cube at Astor Place vanished abruptly, residents and visitors alike were bewildered. Some offered dark speculation about the disappearance. Those who crossed to the traffic island where the cube had stood for decades found three metal barricades and a notice from the Parks Department assuring viewers that the artwork formally known as "Alamo" had not gone missing, but had merely been taken away for repair.

Yesterday morning, the cube was back in its rightful place, a neighborhood totem on a traffic island that has long served as a meeting point and as a big toy that passers-by stumbling out of nearby bars could spin.

The refurbished cube was unveiled at a ceremony attended by Adrian Benepe, the city's parks commissioner, whose agency is in charge of the cube's upkeep; Iris Weinshall, the city's transportation commissioner, whose agency paid for the restoration; and Tony Rosenthal, the artist who created the sculpture nearly 40 years ago.

"There was a big hue and cry," Mr. Benepe said of the cube's removal. "All sorts of conspiracy theories were floated."

Initially, he said, the cube was to return after 60 days, but extra repairs were needed because of damage caused by the elements. One disappointing problem: The cube could no longer be spun as easily.

"We thought it just needed cosmetic surgery," Mr. Benepe said. "But it really needed internal surgery."

Shortly after 11 a.m., several dozen people assembled next to the cube counted down loudly from five. A gold parachute draped over the sculpture was hauled away amid cheers and cries of "Remember the Alamo!"
Mr. Rosenthal, 91, said he was happy to see it back.

"It's a very friendly object," he said. "There's a lot of love for it in the neighborhood."

Mr. Rosenthal created "Alamo" in 1967 as a temporary installation commissioned by the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, but its stay became permanent after local residents petitioned the city. It is made of six eight-by-eight-foot panels of Cor-Ten steel and weighs about 1,800 pounds. Its surface features geometric indentations and grooves, and it turns on a pedestal.

The cube was first called "Sculpture in Environment," but the artist's wife, Cynthia Rosenthal, renamed it because its size and mass reminded her of the Texas fortress.

In March, the cube was taken to Bethany, Conn., where Versteeg Art Fabricators, which designs, makes and restores sculptures and architecture, cut a small entryway in one panel. Workers climbed inside and found that water had collected in the corners. They removed rust and coated the interior with coal tar paint and epoxy.

They unclogged tiny interior channels and drainage holes that allow water to escape from inside the cube, then covered the outside with weather-resistant paint and a clear lacquer that makes it easy to erase graffiti.
The base of the cube was also reinforced with cross beams.

Over the years, the cube has become a cherished neighborhood symbol. It has been listed in travel guides and has been a sort of giant rabbit's foot that people rotated for good luck. Skateboarders and afternoon tipplers have congregated there.

"It was a meeting place for tourists and for drug dealers," Ms. Rosenthal said. "People came and talked to it."

Once, she added, the cube was covered with colored panels so that it resembled a Rubik's Cube.

The author Rick Moody wrote a play that appeared in the summer 2002 issue of The Paris Review called "Alamo: A Radio Play," in which a cast of local characters reflect on the cube.

Last spring, shortly after the sculpture was taken away, Mr. Benepe said, someone replaced it with an imitation one made of PVC pipes.

"It kind of floated in space like the ghost of the cube," Mr. Benepe said of the copy, which remained for a short time before falling apart.

Not long after yesterday's unveiling, two architecture students from Cooper Union ran up to "Alamo" and began rotating it.

"I've always heard about this humongous cube," said Seth Barnard, 18, "but I've never actually seen it and touched it."

His friend James Hamilton, 19, said he had missed the cube during its absence.

"This is a place to stand again, not just a place to run away from traffic," he said. "With the cube here, you can hang out and not look like a vagrant."

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Cube Returns, Genius of Gwathmey Revealed

http://www.gutter.curbed.com/





Perhaps no building in recent memory has been so thoroghly vilified as Charles Gwathmey's Sculpture for Living. Or at least no building in the greater Astor Place region has since that nasty brick-ass thing went up and Domino's took over the ground floor. Or Smith-Miller Hawkinson's wacky Cooper Union Starbucks. Or the dorm across the street. But we digress. And this is no time for digression; it's contrition time.

We don't need to apologize as much as Paul Goldberger should (or has?), but as the current masters of this site, we do need to recant, to cleanse the record for all those who have sinned in our shared name. And it's a doozy: The SFL is a wonder. A work of pure convulsive brilliance. Impeccable.

For all the time that we have been hating it—for most of the time that there has been an it to hate—the building has been standing out of context. "How is this possible," you will shriek. "Buildings don't move!" But wait, oh our Readers. Wait. Remember the Alamo? That edge-balanced confection of black steel that our cousin Reginald used to spin before she and her plaid and punctured posse disappeared into the liberties of St. Mark's? It was gone.

And now it's back. And now—oh Charlie, forgive us!—it is as clear as day.

What only the Master knew before, the student now can see. In its angularity giving softly into curves, then hitting us anew—shebang!—with hard, cold angles, the Sculpture for Living lives on the essence of the Sculpture for Spinning. Without the one the other wilts, without the other the one is dead. But our period in the aesthetic wilderness is over. The cube is here again. The scales have fallen from our eyes. Charlie is vindicated.

Pics of the unveiling here: http://pith.org/photo/view/20051118-thealamo

[ablarc]

What only the Master knew before, the student now can see. In its angularity giving softly into curves, then hitting us anew—shebang!—with hard, cold angles, the Sculpture for Living lives on the essence of the Sculpture for Spinning. Without the one the other wilts, without the other the one is dead. But our period in the aesthetic wilderness is over. The cube is here again. The scales have fallen from our eyes. Charlie is vindicated.

I can see what he means.

.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Except for "Architectural Lofts," the photo is reverent.

[TonyO]

November 21, 2005 Edition > Section: Arts and Letters > Printer-Friendly Version

Astor Place's Gleaming New Face

Architecture
BY JAMES GARDNER - Special to the Sun
November 21, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/23315



Eight years ago, I wrote a book in which I made the following observation: "Despite a brush with celebrity in the early eighties, the East Village has largely resisted gentrification, unlike SoHo and Chelsea. No one is on the make in the East Village. The artistic movement known as the East Village Scene, which was this area's one moment in the sun a few years back, quickly fizzled out, returning the place to those eccentrics, minorities, and working class families who had inhabited the area long before the graffiti artists ever showed up."

Boy, was I wrong! Now that gentrification is rampant in the East Village, it is clear that I had failed to grasp the one essential fact of New York real estate: that its unbridled rapacity takes all before it.

You will find no more emphatic proof of this than the new building, designed by Charles Gwathmey, that has just been completed on Astor Place at the crossroads of Fourth Avenue and Lafayette Street. For decades, this place was a void, a parking lot, a blight upon the neighborhood. Then the builders moved in, and for about two years, it was a living hell: A chaos of scaffolds and a racket of jackhammers overwhelmed one's senses. And now? All is peace. A silvery building arises confidently above the freshly paved sidewalk, and the pedestrians pass by in all their wonted oblivion, as though the building had always been there, as though providence had appointed it to occupy this very place.

The resulting structure is quite good by the standards of most cities, and downright excellent by the standards of New York. A curtain wall curves around an irregularly cylindrical shaft that rises to the 16th floor, where it yields to a trapezoidal setback that is itself crowned by a curving lantern. This curvature is echoed in the diminutive lobby along Fourth Avenue. Here you find those rich spatial legatos that have long been favored by Mr. Gwathmey, to judge from such projects as the Public Library on Madison Avenue and 34th Street and the International Center of Photography on Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street.

Perhaps the best single element of this new building is a heavy metallic canopy protruding from the entrance into the street. It has drama and a sculptural presence. At the same time, the overall result would have been somewhat more satisfying if the curtain wall were a bit more sheer: There is a roughness to its surface that contravenes, or at least does nothing to help, the general tone that the architect was seeking.

Yet another testament to the change that has been visited upon this area is the fact that the entire ground floor, facing St. Mark's Place, is occupied by a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank. Imagine that! In the very heart of New York's grunge bohemia, amid the tattoo parlors, the head shops, and the purveyors of subversive comic books, a gleaming new bank has taken up residence. Bank branches, which are altogether too numerous in Gotham, may uphold the dignity of an area, but that's the most that can be said for them. Beyond that, there is a dreary safeness about them that causes us, or should cause us, to lament their having the money to commandeer the most imposing sites in the city - especially this space, one of the few that comes close to the monumentality of Haussmann's Paris.

Under the circumstances, it is some consolation that Tony Rosenthal's "Alamo," that great, pivoting cube that has occupied the triangular median just across the street for almost four decades, was reinstalled Friday after a thorough overhaul. The relation of this unusual object to the Gwathmey building to the south and the Beaux Arts subway entrance to the north makes for one of New York's more interesting urban interactions.

***

I wish I could be more kindly disposed to the new academic center that Cooper Union is about to build just a stone's throw from the Gwathmey building. Unfortunately, a rather pleasant two-story Neoclassical building will soon be demolished to make way for a nine-story white rectangle, designed by Thom Mayne and his ohso-contemporary firm Morphosis.

One of his bright ideas is that the new facility will serve as a "vertical campus," full of connective spaces spanned by sky bridges. But this notion, pioneered by Kohn Pedersen Fox, was already attempted with some success two years ago at Baruch, in a building that is more interesting and elegant than this newest structure promises to be.

According to renderings, as well as a model lodged, perversely, in the very building that will be demolished to make way for the new one, Mr. Mayne conceives the exterior as a huge white presence of curtain walls whose rectangular mass is harassed by irregular facets and fissures. Somewhat pointlessly, it is adorned at ground level with a series of diagonal pylons that look too frail to support the massive structure that seems ready to come crushing down upon them. Further adornments include those razor-sharp, fin-like protuberances that can be found in a number of new buildings around the city and that have never yet shown any compelling reason to exist.

Madame de Sevigne once remarked that young people, as long as they are not positively deformed, have something attractive about them. And new buildings, as long as they are in conformity with the regnant style of the day, have some provisional interest by virtue of their contemporaneity. But once that style has passed, how paltry those buildings seem that can boast no other aesthetic value than that they were once of their day. I strongly suspect that, by the time the first students take their seats in this new building, it will already have been out of date by several years.

[ablarc]

^ Perceptive analysis of both buildings. This guy could replace Ourousoff.

[TLOZ Link5]

Id like the cube to be another color other than black.

PINK!!!!!

[ZippyTheChimp]

January 15, 2006
Window-Shopping

All That Curvy Glass: Is It Worth It?


Photographs by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

ENVELOPED IN VIEWS The living room of one of the 2248-square-foot apartments in the Astor Place building designed by Charles Gwathmey has views in several directions through an undulating glass wall.


By SUZANNE SLESIN

WHENEVER a new building goes up, I start imagining what it would be like to live there. I think about the neighborhood, study the floor plans and have, on more than one occasion, gone to look at some of the spaces.

Now that many of the new residential buildings come with a big-name designer or architect attached to them, I am even more curious. What do these famous, sophisticated and cutting-edge people bring to a building that was once defined only by location and square footage? Are Richard Meier's or Philippe Starck's contributions on things like room layouts and bathroom faucets worth the premium prices?

My husband, Michael, and I have been thinking about moving downtown for the last 25 years, but something always stops us. Still, I often find myself craving a spectacular view, a clean slate and a new way of life.

So, when I read that Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel, who are partners in one of America's greatest architectural firms, had designed a building at Astor Place on an unusual triangular site on the western edge of the East Village, I was intrigued. As a design journalist, I had always admired Mr. Gwathmey's work: the glorious apartment he designed for Faye Dunaway in the late 1960's, Ralph and Ricky Lauren's amazingly sculptural Fifth Avenue home or his own perched-over-the-Central-Park-Reservoir-with-museum-quality-Wiener-Werkstatte furniture-filled space were perfect examples of their kind.

These were, though, designed for a tiny number of select clients who not only could afford to hire the architect but who were probably enthusiastic about living in a minimalist décor. And although expanses of stark white walls and floor-to-ceiling glass have never been for everyone - maybe least of all me - I was curious to see whether the new undulating glass tower at Astor Place, the Gwathmey-lite ready-to-wear version of his couture projects, required the same commitment to minimalism as his more luxurious and elite spaces.

At first I had trouble wrapping my mind around the existence of a gleaming glass tower in New York University-hangout-land, down the street from the Public Theater, across from Indochine restaurant and cater-corner to St. Marks Place, where teenagers go for their first tattoos. I thought there might be a feeling of disconnect between the grittiness of the neighborhood and the shiny newness of Mr. Gwathmey's design, and indeed there is.

The lobby, tucked around the corner at 445 Lafayette Street, is all pale wood and boutique-hotel-like. Ten of the 39 units are still on the market, two of them penthouses, including a 4,411-square-foot duplex on the 20th and 21st floors, with a 538-square-foot terrace, priced at $12 million.

I am most interested in a two-bedroom, and the A line, with 2,248 square feet, seems the most suitable. I start on the 12th floor, where the sales office has been operating out of an A apartment. Crossing the threshold, I only have eyes for the panoramic views: north to the Empire State Building, east across the buildings of Cooper Union, south over the low-rise buildings of the East Village. In the distance a few bridges, slivers of water, lots of sky. I'm in love.

To get a more realistic look at the same space when it is empty, the sales agent and I take the elevator down to 7A , which is $3.725 million, or about $1,657 a square foot, with a monthly common charge of $3,739.

This was Mr. Gwathmey's first residential tower, and his marketers said he had a very hands-on approach to the interior details. As I'm admiring the bathrooms, I'm informed that Mr. Gwathmey took a special interest in making them as luxurious as possible. There is a white marble-enclosed tub, a large glass-doored shower and curved black granite sinks, each carved from a single piece, and set on cherry-wood vanities.

Mr. Gwathmey was also responsible for the sleek stainless steel fixtures that were made exclusively for the building by Watermark and the beautifully grainy white marble walls and floors selected from a quarry in Italy. I can see myself moving right in, hanging up a snowy white bathrobe and a few fluffy towels. White, of course.

Nice.

The master bedroom is less so. It is a strange shape with a curved wall of glass and a small area off the bathroom described as a solarium, and only one wall on which the bed could be anchored. I try to imagine sleeping or better yet, waking up to the panorama below. Later, I realized that there was really not a convenient place to put the TV, a problem if watching TV in bed is something one likes to do.

There are two large walk-in closets in the master bedroom, a closet in the hall for sheets but maybe only a couple of pillows, and a fairly large coat closet, as well as a wide-enough foyer. I ooh and aah over the clever third bathroom with a shower stall, located powder-room-style near the front door. This bathroom is also adjacent to the "media space" that is open to the living room, but that with the addition of a wall could function as a third bedroom.

I'm sobering up. Although it is marketed in part to empty nesters (we qualify!) I start feeling sentimental about some of the things we would have to leave behind. The years of going to flea markets, collecting yellow-ware bowls, ironstone pitchers, and majolica dishes, the yards and yards of art and design books, and an ever growing number of drawings, photographs, and paintings (my husband is an art dealer after all) are putting the brakes on my fantasy.

Although there is an entrance gallery, we have some large paintings that I'm pretty sure he would not want to live without - even if they could be on a rotating schedule. (Storage will be available, for a fee.)

I move on to the sleek open kitchen. It sits at one end of the living room facing that mesmerizing undulating wall of glass. A long freestanding island of dark gray granite enclosing the stainless steel sinks is a few feet across from a floor-to-ceiling expanse of cherry-wood cabinetry. Enclosed are the nearly invisible appliances I have been coveting: a Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf stainless steel ovens and cooktop, a Miele dishwasher and a Viking wine cooler.

I imagine casually pulling up modern bar stools to the counter, and try not to focus on how I would merge the usual scene in my kitchen (disparate pots and pans, clumps of spices, the odd bunch of bananas, a variety of not particularly aesthetically pleasing bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar) into this boardroom-like environment.

The Astor Place kitchens are for very, very neat cooks. In my new fantasy life, I am not planning to do a whole lot of cooking anyway. But I am planning to eat. Later, I show my husband the floor plans. I guess one has to eat in the living room, he says. Yep, I reply. Isn't that the downtown way?


The building’s exterior is in marked contrast to the lowrise East Village neighborhood.


The master bath has a white marble-enclosed tub and a large glass-doored shower.


In the kitchen, a long freestanding island of dark gray granite encloses the stainless steel sinks.

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

[Alonzo-ny]

a building id love to live in but i think it looks horrible

[NewYorkYankee]

I love the interior!

[ZippyTheChimp]

.